Monday, March 20, 2006

A mystery

Amazon.com Inc. said Monday it had modified the way its search engine handles queries for the term ''abortion'' after receiving an e-mail complaint that the results appeared biased.

Until the recent change, a user who visited the Seattle Internet retailer and typed in the word ''abortion'' received a prompt asking, ''Did you mean adoption?'' followed by search results for ''abortion.''First, why would someone be upset if, after searching for the latest hardback bestsellers on abortion, an automatic question popped up asking if he had accidentally meant to search for adoption?

Also, do most multi-million dollar companies make such a change based upon "an email complaint"? (I can only assume "an" means one email)

Finally, why exactly would the AP find this story important enough to warrant an article?